Presidential hopeful Ron Paul gets grassroots support

 58 comment(s)  
 E-mail Story
 Print Story
  Share

 digg it!
 Facebook
 del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit

Text Size: 

Tools Sponsor

By ZACH PLUHACEK / Lincoln Journal Star

Heads nod in Arnold’s Tavern at mention of a hand-painted “Vote 4 Ron Paul” sign along a Lincoln street.

Of the 15 people gathered recently around two tables in the back of the Havelock neighborhood bar, chances are one of them made it, or at least knows who did. After all, the members of this local presidential campaign are small in number - not to mention spread out and fighting on behalf of a big underdog.

Their candidate, a Republican congressman from Texas running for president, wasn’t included on the latest Associated Press election poll. He’s competing for votes with more well-known names like Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain.

View Slideshow

Sign of Ron Paul for President in front of 2701 N. 27th Street. (Kainaz Amaria)

Fittingly, Rep. Ron Paul’s supporters are like creatures of the night: they’re elusive, guerrilla campaigners from virtually every shade of the political spectrum.

Adam Cutshell, a 30-year-old custodian with a shaved head, facial piercings and goatee, is a recent addition to the unofficial campaign in Lincoln. His girlfriend’s brother, 21-year-old Shawn Carlton, brought him along to the recent weeknight meeting.

The two wore matching “Join the Ron Paul Revolution” T-shirts Carlton made.

Fifty-year-old Dave Oenbring,  an “old-school Libertarian” with average-length gray hair and a button-up shirt, sits a few chairs away. He’s been involved in or contributed to Paul campaigns since 1992.

Paul is running as a “constitutionalist,” supporting limited constitutional government, low taxes and a free market economy, and denouncing unfounded wars.

Leading the group on this  Wednesday night is 45-year-old Laura Ebke, a Goldwater Republican with a Ph.D. in political science. She was state chair of the Teenage Republicans in high school, and is one of the only group members with official campaign experience.

She might be the one mainstream Republican in the group and, like many others, didn’t know any fellow Ron Paul supporters when she joined the campaign.

“The first meeting was kind of interesting,” she said. “You could hear people in front of you talking about Ron Paul and you could hear people in back of you talking about Ron Paul.”

Since about 12 people showed up for that first get-together in June, Ebke has seen the size of the Lincoln campaign jump to about 50 members.

“It has become sort of a social gathering of sorts, too,” she said.

Lincoln’s Paul campaign is one of almost 600 like it organized through the Web site Meetup.com, a social networking tool that allows members to join groups, meet each other and send messages via the Internet.

The site’s map shows five Ron Paul campaigns in different Nebraska cities: Lincoln, Omaha, Beatrice, North Platte and Norfolk. North Platte is the smallest, with eight members. Worldwide, the groups span 12 countries, and include more than 26,700 members who have planned more than 1,750 events.

On Paul’s Myspace.com page, about 50,000 people have befriended the congressman.

“It’s been wonderful for us,” said Don Rasmussen, special assistant to the official Ron Paul 2008 campaign.

Although Paul’s official Web site has a link to Meetup.com, campaign finance regulations have forced the grassroots Paul groups to keep a slight distance from the national campaign. Simply put, these groups started on their own or solely with the help of other local groups.

The members have made their own campaign literature, planned their own events and designed graphics and products to sell promoting their candidate.

A search for “Ron Paul” on the online marketplace CafePress.com, which allows users to sell customized merchandise over the Internet, results in 2,000 designs printed on 29,200 different products. The items range from bumper stickers reading “Ron Paul Revolution” with the “evol” flipped to spell “Love,” to T-shirts printed with “Hope for America Ron Paul 2008.”

The same search on the video site YouTube.com shows 36,800 results. There are clips of his television guest spots and campaign stops, as well as user-made clips mostly supporting the congressman’s run for the presidency.

“This doesn’t cost the national campaign a penny,” Rasmussen said. “It was never directed by the campaign.”

The national campaign has created its own signs and official literature, but none has been distributed.

According to election data from opensecrets.org, the Paul campaign is in fourth place among Republicans for dollars raised. The most updated numbers from the Federal Election Commission place Paul’s total at more than $3 million.

Arizona Sen. John McCain — in third place on the opensecrets.org list — has raised no money in Lincoln, according to the site. Paul was eighth overall in Lincoln with $200.

So far, the Paul campaign has managed to keep much of this cash in hand instead of spending it, a feat which Rasmussen attributed largely to the unofficial support Paul has received.

“We’re thrilled beyond words,” Rasmussen said.

To keep this momentum going, Ebke and other Lincoln Paul supporters know they need to continue planning support events and expanding their group.

At the last meeting, they discussed plans to campaign at the Wilber Czech Festival this weekend.

One member even thought about handing out campaign literature at a garage sale.

“Most of us have donated to the campaign ourselves,” Ebke said. “We’re just trying to get the name out as much as we can because (Paul is) not one of the big-name candidates to begin with.”

Reach Zach Pluhacek at 473-7395 or zpluhacek@journalstar.com.